Donald Horton & R. Richard Wohl (1956) Mass Communication and ParaSocial Interaction, Psychiatry, 19:3, 215-229, DOI: 10.1080/00332747.1956.11023049

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Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction

ONE OF THE STRIKING CHARACTERISTICS of the new mass media-radio, television, and the movies-is that they give the illusion of face-to-face relationship with the performer. The conditions of response to the performer are analogous to those in a primary group. The most remote and illustrious men are met as if they were in the circle of one's peers; the same is true of a character in a story who comes to life in these media in an especially vivid and arresting way. We propose to call this seeming face-to-face relationship between spectator and performer a para-social relationship.